


The Queen's Savior

by TziPouring



Series: SabeAniDala [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: Queen's Shadow Series - E. K. Johnston
Genre: Canon Compliant, Complicated Relationships, F/F, Fluff, Girls Kissing, Missing Scene, Padmé Amidala Deserves Better, Post-Battle of Naboo (Star Wars), Queen Padmé Amidala
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-11 06:08:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28346646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TziPouring/pseuds/TziPouring
Summary: Padmé Amidala stands triumphant in her dressing room, all thanks to her brave decoy. They kiss, then they negotiate like politicians, kind of.
Relationships: Padmé Amidala/Sabé
Series: SabeAniDala [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2075931
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	The Queen's Savior

Sabé stood in the dressing room. The queen’s headpiece was gone but her hair was still braided up. She still wore the battle dress, her face was still painted. Every fiber of her being thrummed with adrenaline. _Padmé Amidala had done it. Naboo was hers again, they were free_ . Padmé stood across the room, facing her. _She was safe and alive._ The other handmaidens had left to prepare funeral arrangements. _They were alone._ For the first time since they’d been reunited, they were alone. Padmé crossed the room, it took both no time, and all the time. Now the two were barely a foot apart. At the sudden closeness Sabé felt strangely claustrophobic, like something was different about the air.

Padmés heart was thrumming. She looked into the face of Amidala, but it wasn’t her own. It was Sabés face. Sabé, her savior. They’d done it; they'd really done it. Naboo was free. She’d thought it was over when they’d been surrounded and marched to the throne room. But then there was Sabé, jumping right into the line of fire, DEFINING the line of fire, drawing the droids away. Padmé reached out a hand, held Sabés waist and gave it a gentle squeeze. _She was real. solid. alive._ Sabé had done it all to give her a chance. A chance she’d used; and they’d won. _How could she ever have doubted even for a second?_

“Can I help you undress your highness, just me?” Padmé asked. 

“Yes” Sabé said, maintaining the voice, somehow. _Your highness_ . _Their ruse was twice-over now. Why was Padmé still addressing her as such?_ Switches were exhausting and this was the most intense one yet. AND she had needed to wind back up after she’d failed to convince Boss Nass. She hadn’t failed this time. Padmé stood in front of her, alive, free and unharmed. She mirrored Padmés move, reaching out a hand to grab at her waist. _Unharmed, free._ She’d done her duty. Now she was shaky, exhausted and somehow still bold with adrenaline... W _hy was Padmé looking at her that way?_ Their eyes locked and she couldn’t look away. There was only Padmé; nothing else existed. 

Padmé held Sabés gaze as she reached behind the torso of the battle dress, around Sabés protected belly. _She might’ve died for me._ Padmé thought in exasperated wonder as she undid the belt. _My brave, brave friend._ Her heart pounded and she knew what she wanted. It wasn’t something she should want, and not something she could ask for either. But if ever their balance of power favored Sabé, it was right now. Her savior, still the queen. She broke their gaze and kissed her cheek, her eyelashes grazing precious skin still painted white. Sabé leaned into her and it took so much to pull back. She needed to give her friend space to react, space to reject, space to think. 

“You saved us, your highness” 

“Padmé, you don’t have to call--” Sabé managed to strain, her face hot where Padmés soft lips had graced it, her voice cracking from Amidala’s to her own after the name, but she was cut off.

“My queen, I think I owe you a real kiss” _just tell me no if you don’t want it. Please let this be okay._ Padmé knew how Sabé felt about her, but acting on it like this was a completely different matter. This was her though chance, after all the drama of the previous weeks, maybe she could finally get this right. Instead of leaning forward to kiss her, as she’d hoped, Sabé bristled. _Oh no_

“You don’t owe me anything, especially not that” Sabés words cut through her. She’d made a mistake, again. Maybe there was no talking around this, or hinting at it. 

“I’m sorry, that’s not what I meant. I just don’t know how to say this to you, maybe there is no right way but... **I want** to kiss you”

Sabé stared into that face, Padmés face, the one that they almost shared. Now the reason for the false titles here made sense. Padmé was trying to give her agency and power. Did her queen really want to kiss _her_? 

She nodded, not trusting her voice to maintain any composure. And then…and then Padmés lips, Padmés lips pressed the tiniest kiss to her own and she thought she might just melt. Only, she couldn’t just melt, she was the queen still. She was shaking, about to beg to be undressed so she could finally be herself when--

“May I?” Padmé asked and her fingers brushed the opening to the battle gown. Sabé nodded, barely able to do anything else, everything was so intense. Padmé undressed her, peeling back the layers of the dress with such care and reverence.

Then it was off and she was in her underclothes and she could be herself again.

“you’re alive and —“ Sabés voice was her own “you did it, we’re” she took another breath in, why wasn’t it getting to her lungs? “All of Naboo, we’re free”

“My Savior, I sent you into battle and you came back, and you saved me in the meantime. You saved the plan, you saved the planet, you saved us all” Padmés eyes were full of a fondness that made Sabé burn all over, in her gut, along her extremities and well…

“Padmé” she said it in a voice so clearly her own, for all her pounding heart and breathless lungs, it was all she could say.

“Sabé” Padmé responded full of warm curiosity.

“It was your plan. I’m not your savior, that’s just my job...but I think I want to kiss you too,” Sabé blurted out. Exhaustion had worn down her resolve, her stamina, her control and given her feelings space to win out. “Tell me no, tell me to wait, tell me never. My hands are still yours. Always” she said with conviction and finality. A relief. She exhaled. 

Padmé took Sabés hands and guided them to her cheeks, where they cupped her chin so gently. Sabé pulled her towards her trembling face, the one that still looked like the queen, and those brave painted lips met her own. It was everything, her heart felt huge in her chest, everything else was tingly and warm. It wasn’t her first kiss, but how could her childhood firsts compare to the singular experience of kissing someone so dear, so brave, someone who’d nearly died for her. 

Sabés mind was afire. Was it really only a couple short weeks ago that she was imagining kissing Harli? How could this even be the same thing? Padmés lips on hers sent waves of sensation through her. Her cheeks flushed, her stomach clenched and her stance finally wavered.

She stepped back, and Padmé withdrew her lips

“It was all lost until you” she said,

At this Sabé was able to smirk.

“You are certainly mistaken, It was you who saved us all.” 

“Can you say it again? What you yelled in the hall?”

Sabé stared at her queen, her guiding light, Padmé. She took a deep breath and adjusted her throat to speak in their voice, the queen’s voice. She could breathe just fine.

“Viceroy! Your occupation here has end—!”

Padmé kissed her with a ferocity Sabé had only imagined in her dreams. Padmé Amidala, her queen, toppler of chancellors, alliance builder, hero and savior of Naboo, and all she could do was melt.

—

Arrangements had been made and the Queen and her handmaidens reunited outside the suite. Bath time was strange, full of victorious giggles, contemplative or grieving silences, cheers for the queen’s victory, cheers for the survivors and heads hung in moments of silence for the fallen; the brave gungans and all of the heroes of Naboo. 

Rabé hip checked Sabé on the way to bed “I’m taking your spot tonight, go share with the queen”

Sabé raised an eyebrow, but didn’t argue.

“I’m so sorry...I just got carried away. I shouldn’t have asked you to kiss me” Padmé said from her own bed, staring up at the ceiling. The exhilaration of their victory had faded and now she was very plainly aware of the boundary she had so aggressively crossed. 

“Padmé, I told you how I felt, you don’t have to be sorry. You don’t have to kiss me again,” Sabé said, in a voice painted neutral.

“Do you want me to?” _I want to, so badly._ Padmé fretted. 

“You know I do,” Sabé said, serious but unconcerned, as if truly any outcome would be fine with her. 

“So how do we do this? I can’t ask you to do this” Padmé repeated again, trying both to ask and not ask at the same time. 

Sabé considered.

“ _This..._ doesn’t have to be so different from how things are now. Duty is paramount. None of us show affection in public, so...only when we’re sharing your room I think. And we can’t rearrange the bed schedules. It was nice of Rabe’ to push me here, but we shouldn’t do this again”

Padmé exhaled in agreement, then she smiled at an idea.

“Okay. But here... you have to come to me, I think you have to be in charge... then I won’t ever ask for too much”

Sabé mulled it over, it was a lot of responsibility. It was strange for them to negotiate boundaries like this, but --at least when it came to kissing--...they’d learned that maybe they needed a few more words than with less personal topics. _At least for now_ she thought rather boldly. 

“I can do that, but you have to let me know when you don’t want what I’m offering… and you have to trust I’ll be yours regardless.”

_Yours._ Padmé adjusted to look into Sabés eyes. _Mine._ Possessive words. She didn’t like that, but to think of Sabé as anything but _hers_ was an insult to her sacrifice, she would’ve given her literal life. 

“Okay. I trust you more than anyone, but I can’t be yours”

“I know” 

“Sabé, you give so much of yourself to me already. This. kissing and stuff..” She paused and blushed, searching for the words. It was hard to talk about this, she lacked in both expertise and vocabulary. 

“You can’t give me everything, okay? If we do this, If you get another chance to kiss someone you like, I want you to.”

“I don’t think that’ll be a problem”

“Sabé, please. I’m never going to be able to give you enough, not the way you give me, but I can’t do this if it means keeping you from other people who might. I already ruined it once. ” 

“Okay.”

Sabé got up from her bed and crossed the narrow separation to Padmés larger one. She might’ve said something about how her queen was already enough for her, even if they never kissed again or she might’ve tried to reassure her that she hadn’t ruined anything...but they’d had enough words. When she got to the edge of the queen’s bed Padmé moved to let her in. Their first silent negotiation in this new and exciting realm.

They faced each other at first, fresh smiles matching. Sabé reached a hand and ran her fingers reverently down Padmés cheek. Padmé mirrored the move. Sabé caught Padmés hand and brought it to her lips, kissing her fingertips before leaning in to plant one gently on her lips. 

Padmé leaned into the kiss, responding in kind. These weren’t the firey kisses of earlier, but tender ones, soft and explorative. Padmé basked in the warmth of the moment, enjoying the pleasant fluttering in her stomach with each kiss. Things felt right again, Naboo was free, she and Sabé had found their balance once again. She broke away from the kisses to yawn; it had been quite a day.

Sabé felt she could stay this way for hours, kissing and caressing her sleepy queen, talking into the night like they had those first two weeks. But now, in the aftermath of the battle of naboo, she could only see such indulgences as childish; they had work to do in the morning. She pushed Padmé over gently and wrapped an arm around her middle, covering her in an embrace, protecting her queen as she’d always choose to do. She pressed a delicate kiss to the back of her neck.

“Sleep well, my queen”

Padmé grasped the hand draped over her waist and brought it to her mouth for a final kiss.

“You too, my savior”

**Author's Note:**

> I guess this is the prelude to a ridiculous, and probably bad super long Padme's love life missing-scenes series I've been drafting. It'll follow my headcannon of Padme's sex life all the way through ROTS. Enjoy. It feels cannon compliant to me, but feel free to point out stuff that doesn't work if you see it.
> 
> Also, in addition to trying to learn to write better, I've been learning to draw. So you'll have my extremely amateurish Padme/Sabe drawings to deal with at the end of these stories.


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